


In Praise of Folly: A High School Tale in Indeterminate Parts

by MembraneLabs



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Boarding School, Alternate Universe - High School, Dorks in Love, Slow Burn, Takes place in America specifically the Northeast SORRY!, tags updated as fic progresses
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-27
Updated: 2019-06-27
Packaged: 2020-05-20 19:51:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19383589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MembraneLabs/pseuds/MembraneLabs
Summary: Eden Preparatory High School was the sort of place a student could learn a lot about themselves.Mainly, exactly the sort of person they hoped to never become.





	In Praise of Folly: A High School Tale in Indeterminate Parts

  
_“The highest form of bliss is living with a certain degree of folly.”_

_“The chief element of happiness is this: to want to be what you are.”_  
_― Erasmus_

 

  
**AN INTRODUCTION OF SORTS**

Eden Preparatory High School’s motto was “Character Before Career”, which was exactly the sort of motto a high school with a tuition in the thousands per year would have. It was a small school of indeterminate Christianity, accepting students in grades 8th through 12th. It was a boarding school with some day students, and it had a campus. There was a dining hall, and a chapel. and while it did have “scholarship kids”, the school catered to a very particular sort of family with the right amount of money and the right connections. It was the sort of place a student could learn a lot about themselves.

Mainly, exactly the sort of person they hoped to never become.

But first, we must go back to the beginning…

  
**FRESHMAN YEAR, SIX DAYS AFTER ORIENTATION**

Anthony Fell, freshman, was walking toward the Dining Hall when a tall boy dressed all in black and wearing sunglasses exited the Auditorium. The late-August sun caught the red of his cockscomb-styled hair - he was impossible to miss against the white columns of the auditorium building.

Anthony recognized him from yesterday’s school play auditions - Anthony had been so nervous, he’d never done anything like that before. His cousin Gabriel told him not to bother, that he’d be too busy with after-school sports and that they never gave anything to the freshmen, but Anthony went anyway. The boy had been lounging in the back row of the dark theater. He’d been wearing the same sunglasses then and had been slouching like he was asleep. The director had an inscrutable face and had made him read lines for Puck, and then thanked him and sent him on his way.

The boy on the steps waved in his direction. Anthony looked over his shoulder to see who he was waving at.

But there was no one behind him.

The boy jumped off the stairs in one go, landing in such a loose-limbed manner Anthony was sure he’d faceplant on the concrete. But then his knees miraculously locked and he hopped back into a somewhat upright position. Anthony let go of the breath that had caught in his throat, and kept walking.

The boy pulled up next to him, his torso curving like he had a personal vendetta against gravity. “Good job in the audition yesterday,” he began, keeping step with Anthony.

“...come again?” Anthony asked, his ears catching up. He couldn’t have possibly been talking to him. This boy looked-- well, he looked COOL. Like a rock star.

If you could even be a rock star at 13.

“Audition. Good job,” the boy repeated.

“Oh! Oh, thank you,” Anthony said, and he couldn’t help but smile.

It was the first time someone had approached him outside of class that he wasn’t related to, and it was to offer a compliment. It caught him off guard.

“So what part do you want? In _Midsummer_?” The boy asked.

“Oh, any part,” Anthony assured him. “After all, there’s no small parts.” And he knew he was doing the head wiggle Gabriel always said made him look like an idiot. He tried to stop, which he was sure only made him look even dumber.

“Nah - there’s definitely small parts, the trick is to get one big enough part so you get out of after-school sports. Unless you’re into that sort of thing,” the boy drawled.

They were getting close to the Dining Hall. There were more students now. “Well, my cousin wants me to be manager of the track team, he says I’m so abysmal at sports it would be for the best and that it looks good for college,” Anthony said.

“Who’s your cousin?”

“Gabriel. Gabriel Annuncio. Do you know him?”

“Oh, I know Gabriel. My condolences,” the boy offered with a tilt of his head. And Anthony laughed.

“Wait, so if you get a larger role, you don’t have to do sports?” Anthony asked.

“That’s how it works! Me, I’m trying to make myself indispensable to tech, that’s the ticket there,” the boy said, and stretching his unnaturally long legs he got two steps ahead of Anthony and opened the dining hall door for him.

“What’s your name?” He asked as he followed Anthony into the building. He could already smell today’s lunch. It didn’t smell half bad.

“Anthony,” he said, putting his backpack down in the coat room. It was already brimming with other students’ things.

The boy gave a long groan as he shoved his hands into his pockets. Anthony was reasonably certain the boy wasn’t wearing black dress slacks, but black jeans, a most definite dress code violation. “You can’t be an Anthony, I’m an Anthony!” The boy said, looking towards the ceiling like he meant to curse the heavens. “Don’t suppose you’ve got a middle name?” he asked, coming back down to earth.

“...Zira? It’s a family name,” he offered.

“Zira! That’s perfect! Alright, Zira, nice to meet you, I’m Anthony—“

“Mr. Crowley! Fix your tie! Where is your blazer!?”

Anthony Crowley pivoted towards the teacher at the entrance. She came closer with all the malice of a thunderstorm passing over the plains. “Must have forgotten it in class, Mrs. Hickey!” He said, snapping his fingers in disappointment. “I suppose I’ll have to go look for it after—“

“Right now, Mr. Crowley!” The teacher ordered, and Anthony Crowley shot him a baleful look.

“Save me a seat? Thanks, Zira, you’re a pal!” He said, clapping him on the back.

Anthony - well, Zira, as he’d soon be irreversibly known around the school - watched Anthony J. Crowley run off, completely unaware that everything that had been so carefully planned for him had just been bombed to hell.

Zira was still too new to be privy to the most important gossip at Eden Prep, but all it took was mentioning Anthony J. Crowley to his cousin to get the story about The Expulsion.

In the spring of last year with May graduation firmly in sight, two seniors, Adam and Eve, were thrown out.

There were all sorts of rumors, but the biggest one was that Anthony J. Crowley - an 8th grader who’d only been at Eden for two months because he’d been kicked out of his last school and it was only his family’s money and influence that got him into Eden - was somehow involved. He was just some 8th grader, and somehow, he taken down the school’s most popular couple.

“Look, that kid - he hangs out with the wrong crowd. I mean, he was always hanging out with Lucy,” Gabriel said, like Zira knew what he meant by Lucy. Then again, Gabriel was in the habit of assuming everyone knew what he was talking about. “Don’t get too cozy with him, alright coz?”

Gabriel was a junior and the family was betting on him getting into only the best Catholic Universities. Gabriel was always full of advice for his younger cousins.

But it was hardly Zira’s fault Anthony J. Crowley was in practically all of his classes. The school prided itself on how small it was. And he couldn’t be blamed that he did get a part in _A Midsummer Night's Dream_ \- Flute, the Bellowsmender - and ended up spending the time between his scenes hanging about the tech room where Crowley (everyone called him Crowley, it seemed perfectly natural to do so as well) had taken up shop. And well, it was only polite to talk to him when they were assigned to the same table at dinner, or stop by his room with some chocolates his family had sent as they were in the same dorm, or let him take a look at his pristine notes before the Biology test just the once.

And whatever it was that actually happened during The Expulsion, Crowley never said, and really, Zira didn’t need to know.

This will be important later.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I went to a very small Christian high school in New York that had boarding students. I am writing this fic based entirely on that very specific experience. So...if y’all didn’t go to something similar, it probably going to sound WEIRD at first. I was in high school 1999-2003, and I’m vaguely placing it around that time (ASK ME ABOUT MY PLAYLIST!), so that’s also going to influence the school and student politics, especially re: being queer. There’s a reason a shit ton of my friends and myself only came out to each other years and years after the fact, although as “the theater kids” we all sorta……knew that about each other. Fundamentalist religion gets in your head and messes you up kids! This entire fic has become a weird kind of therapy for me. 
> 
> I do say that, however, because that was MY high school experience, I'll be trying to pull back the reigns on some of the worst things I remember as I started this fic from a light, happy, absolutely RIDICULOUS place. There will probably be angst, but I'm sure no matter what happens, Crowley and Aziraphale will find happiness at the end. 
> 
> If they can survive High School, of course.


End file.
